Something odd happened Tuesday: Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton solidly among
working class white voters
in Oregon.
He won in all age groups except over 60 and he won among voters making under $50,000 a year and he won
among voters without college degrees. Given the demographics of Oregon, nearly all these people are white.
Thus it indeed seems he has an
Appalachia problem
rather than a generic blue-collar problem. He will no doubt work on this by emphasizing bread-and-butter issues
like jobs and mortgage relief in the general election. Earlier in the year he talked about a big plan to
rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure, a project that would create a lot of jobs. He might put that back
on the table as a way to appeal to Appalachian voters, many of whom are hurting economically.
The saga of Vito Fossella (R-NY) in NY-13 is not over. The Hill
reports
that he may go to jail for drunken driving (not for having two families, that's fine).
If he goes to jail, there will be immense pressure on him to resign from Congress to avoid bad PR.
If he resigns before July 1, Gov. David Paterson (D-NY) has the option of calling a special election.
Given that Democrats have won three contested special elections in a row in highly Republican territory,
Paterson may well call a special election in this D+1 district and the Democrats may pick up another
House seat. If Fossella stays in the House until after July 1, the seat will remain vacant until January.
The senatorial committees have
reported
their April numbers as follows:
Committee
Raised
Spent
Cash on Hand
DSCC
$4.2 million
$4.5 million
$37.6 million
NRCC
$4.3 million
$2.3 million
$19.4 million
The congressional committees have also
reported
on April as follows:
Committee
Raised
Spent
Cash on Hand
DCCC
$5.0 million
$4.1 million
$45.3 million
NRCC
$4.3 million
$4.7 million
$6.7 million
No new primary polls today, but there are several general election polls.
State
Clinton
McCain
Start
End
Pollster
Colorado
44%
47%
May 19
May 19
Rasmussen
Florida
47%
41%
May 19
May 19
Rasmussen
Missouri
48%
46%
May 16
May 18
SurveyUSA
N. Carolina
49%
43%
May 17
May 19
SurveyUSA
Utah
20%
65%
May 13
May 19
Dan Jones
Virginia
38%
47%
May 12
May 18
VA Commonw. U.
State
Obama
McCain
Start
End
Pollster
Colorado
48%
42%
May 19
May 19
Rasmussen
Florida
40%
50%
May 19
May 19
Rasmussen
Missouri
45%
48%
May 16
May 18
SurveyUSA
N. Carolina
43%
51%
May 17
May 19
SurveyUSA
Utah
27%
62%
May 13
May 19
Dan Jones
Virginia
36%
44%
May 12
May 18
VA Commonw. U.
California
49%
41%
May 16
May 18
SurveyUSA
The polling results for all primaries and caucuses are available as a
Web page
and in
.csv format.